Time On My Hands 2
by Laura W
Summary: Six months after Voyager's return to Earth, Chakotay takes inventory. J/C.


A second piece written for the VAMB Time On My Hands challenge. You need not have read my first Time On My Hands submission, although they do work in tandem.

Please note the J/C designation in the header copy. This is pretty decidedly shippy. If J/C is not your cup of tea, you might want to turn back now!

**Time on My Hands 2**

"I've never had so much time on my hands."

The wolf looks at me with amber eyes, then looks away. She says nothing.

She's lying next to me, legs outstretched, pink tongue lolling, head pressed against my thigh. I run my hand through the gray-white fur along her belly. She's thinner than I remember, her ribs raised under my palm.

It's the first time she has appeared to me in almost three years.

I cannot remember the exact moment when she stopped coming to me in my vision quests. During the incident with Captain Ransom and the _Equinox_, I was desperate for her counsel. She did not come to me, and I realized she hadn't for months. My vision quests without her had been useful only to a point, providing respite from a life on _Voyager_ that had become mundane in its routine, but punctuated by periods of chaos and terror.

There was no good advice to be found on those vision quests. And I could have used some good advice.

Intellectually, I know that the vision quest is a closed loop. The _akoonah_ replicates the dream state and allows access to parts of the brain that are usually not available to the wakeful mind. My people refer to our animal guides as entities unto themselves, but we know they are not. They are our own deepest selves made manifest to us. Sometimes they surprise us because the way we really _are_ is often different from our self perception. The wolf has always given me good advice because she represents my true self, my best self.

It should have troubled me that the wolf stopped coming to me.

It didn't.

I simply...shrugged it off.

That had become my primary method for dealing with the Delta Quadrant. Angry? Shrug it off. Disappointed? Shrug it off. Embarrassed? Shrug it off.

I had learned to ignore my own feelings out of self-preservation.

The Delta Quadrant broke me. The man I was before _Voyager_ – even the man I was at the beginning of our journey – was buried so deep inside me that I couldn't find him anymore. So the wolf stopped coming to me, and I stopped trying to reach her.

When I packed to leave _Voyager, _I buried my _akoonah_ in a cargo container with my medicine bundle. I told myself it was out of respect for Seven, who did not approve of my spirituality.

In truth, it was because I was afraid the wolf would appear to me again.

But you can't hide from yourself forever.

Leaving _Voyager_ with Seven was...not my best decision. I knew it even then. Standing with Kathryn, watching Seven hover over our bags and cargo containers, I realized I was making a terrible mistake. I even knew why I was making it. Something in me, maybe my best self making one last effort to set things right, caused me to linger at Kathryn's side.

"The years have taken a toll," I said. "On all of us. On you and me." I looked down at Kathryn, hoping she would understand. "Maybe someday we'll remember who we were before."

"Maybe," she said. "In time." Her eyes were unclouded.

I nodded. "Time," I said. "We have plenty of that now."

"I suppose we do."

I suddenly realized that I would no longer see her every day. The knowledge cut me in a place so deep I almost couldn't breathe. "I don't know how to say goodbye to you," I said.

She looked up at me with clear blue eyes. "Then don't," she replied.

I frowned to cover my surprise. For a crazy minute, I thought she might ask me to stay. "Don't? What do you mean?"

"Don't say goodbye. Just...take your things and go. We'll see each other again."

"Soon?" I asked, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

"I don't know," she answered. "I think I'll go home to Indiana for a while."

I recognized the dismissal in her tone. I'd heard it before. "Call me when you get settled?"

"I will." This time, I heard the lie.

I nodded. It was the only thing left to do. Nothing I would say would change her mind, and for three years she'd barely listened to me anyway. I felt a spark of anger and embraced it. "Okay, then. Take care of yourself, Kathryn," I said, and joined Seven before I could change my mind. As I walked away with our bags in my hands, I felt the invisible cord that tethered me to Kathryn stretch and stretch.

I shrugged it off. It was easy.

That was six months ago.

She never called.

Neither did I.

Seven is long gone.

I wish I could say I miss her. It might make me feel better about the man I was when I was with her.

I have bounced from assignment to assignment since then, unable to settle. The third time I requested reassignment, Starfleet told me to either take leave or come in for counseling.

I opted for leave. To accept counseling would be an admission that I had buried the best of myself and needed help finding it.

Help, when it came, was so unexpected I almost didn't recognize it.

I am spending my leave with my sister and her family. Today I caught my three-year-old nephew flinging things out of my cargo container, giggling. There was nothing in there that could hurt him, so I lifted him into the cargo container and let him paw through the mementos of my time on _Voyager. _

It was like witnessing a journey back in time, seven years uncoiling before me. Paka, perhaps sensing my mood, handed each item to me with an expression that became more serene with every second. I named and explained the items and set them aside.

Kathryn's copy of Dante's _Inferno_. My custom comm badge from Quarra. 3D glasses from Tom's movie night. Boxing gloves. A handwritten letter to myself telling of a love I'd lost and couldn't remember. A lei from Neelix's luau. A Prixin candle. A Los Angeles magnet from an ancient Earth souvenir shop. The shirt I was wearing the day Tuvok came to rescue us from New Earth.

The memories were so vivid that when Paka handed over my medicine bundle, there were tears in my eyes. I set it on the floor in front of me, lifted Paka out of the container and settled him in my lap. I unwrapped the medicine bundle, both dreading and embracing what each item inside would do to me. The _akoonah, _abandoned for reasons both selfless and selfish.A stone from a river that ran now with ashes. A blackbird's wing that had soared in a once-clear sky.

A container of tiny Talaxian tomato seeds that were never planted.

A sliver of wood from a bathtub.

Paka imitated me, placing his little hand on each item along with mine. We sat for a long time, just staring at these reminders of everything I'd lost, until Paka snuggled his head against my chest and slept.

I let the tears fall, finally, knowing how much I needed their cleansing.

Then I closed my eyes. _Please_, I whispered. _Please._

I placed my hand on the _akoonah_ and chanted the ancient words.

When I opened my eyes, I was in the forest where I'd played as a boy. It had been years since this place had appeared in my visions, and even if the wolf wouldn't come to me, I felt peace begin to seep back into my spirit.

But when I saw the flash of amber eyes, I held my breath. She hovered at the edge of the forest, took a wary step forward, then another and another. Soon she was trotting toward me. When she reached my side she licked my cheek and I laughed.

It felt good.

We played for a time, then we both flopped down in the grass. She did not speak.

Time passes differently in the vision quest, but I feel we have sat here for hours, and still she has not spoken. I sense that she will not speak during this vision. And that's all right. It's enough that she is here.

I scratch her ears. "I've been lost for a long time," I say. She turns and nips my hand.

Maybe a part of me will always be lost. The Delta Quadrant changed me, took something from me that I'll never get back. Maybe the best I can do now is to find as much of the man I was as I can and reconcile with who I have become. I might never be the man I was before. I hope that I can be better.

It'll take time.

I stroke the wolf's bony back.

I'm grateful to have so much time on my hands.

END


End file.
